The Return of Rip Hunter
by and.why.the.hell.not
Summary: My take on how Rip should have returned to the team. Begins with the excursion into Rip s mind and does also deal with the aftermath. It is more emotional than in the series and Rip starts getting nightmares and is suffering from self-doubts. Mixes Sara s and Rip s POV. Loads and loads of friendship, angst and trust.
1. This is your mind!

**The Return of Rip Hunter**

It hurt when Sara and Jax entered Rip´s mind. It felt weird and somehow Sara knew that it hurt Rip most of all. She could have sworn that she had heard him screaming in pain when her own eyes fell shut and she found herself on a time ship very similar to the waverider. But it couldn´t be the waverider because it was somehow cold and dark – and spooky. Jax was standing right next to her and when she looked at him she saw the face she expected to see on herself at the same moment – puzzled mixed with a bad feeling about what was coming next.

"That´s the waverider" Jax said quietly looking around him in astonishment.

"Not quite" Sara answered with a deep voice.

"This is Rip´s mind. It is what he thinks the waverider is like" she added sadly.

Jax looked as if he wanted to say something but Sara decided that there was no time to discuss the complexity of the human mind and made her way to the captain´s office. _When this is Rip´s mind then he should be there_ she thought to herself. Jax followed her in confusion but did not ask any further questions. His mind was working too much right now to think straight.

When Sara turned around the next corner she ducked away in the split of a second before one of the uniformed soldiers could recognise her.

"Damn it...This is Rip´s mind, it must be full of threats and enemies" she cursed.

"What...Do you mean this ship his crowded with an army of people who would like to kill us?...oh come on" now Jax was really pissed off. They took another gateway and hid in the engine room when a troop passed them. Sara turned around the next corner but was hit in the face at the same moment and landed hard on the ground. Angrily she stood up to face her opponent when she frown. In front of her was...herself. Sara Lance in a white suite and with an evil grin on her face. When she kicked Jax to the ground in the next moment she spoke in a nearly electronic sounding voice.

"You are not welcome here" she said. Sara fought with her(-self) but she had some supernatural power and after a moment an evil Mick and an evil firestorm did also appeared at the scene. She was able to hold them back and tell Jax to run before the evil Sara hit her against a wall and she fell unconsciousness to the ground.

When Sara woke up her head was spinning and she needed a moment to get her full vision back to see where she was. She was lying on the ground in the prison cell. It was very dark and only some small lights indicated that the door was locked and that she had no way out. _They didn´t get Jax, that´s a start. Maybe he finds a way to get to me but right now he is probably hiding somewhere on the ship or running in circles to not get caught._

"Mhh..." Sara turned abruptly when she heard the growl from the darkened corner of the prison cell. When she looked closer she noticed a dark figure cowering on the ground, rolled into a small ball. It was a men and he was wincing. When Sara stepped closer her heart skipped a beat, she saw the brown long coat, the skinny black jeans and the boots of the man they came here for in the first place.

"Rip?!" she asked loud enough for the other person to hear her. The man opened his eyes and lifted his head up to see who was speaking and started to shiver slightly.

"Rip it´s me, Sara" she said stepping closer put she was stopped immediately when Rip started to scream.

"NO! GO AWAY FROM ME!" at first he held his arms in front of him, then he started to hug his arms around his waist and sank even deeper down on the ground.

"Rip look, it´s ok I am going to get you out of here" Sara knelt down to have a better look at her captain. Only now she saw the extent of what had have done to Rip. He had lost a lot of weight and she could see every bone in his face. His eyes were sunken in his head and they looked sad and hurt. He looked as if he was beaten and tortured for months. _Maybe he was_ Sara thought to herself in concern for her friend and in regret. She should have done this sooner. But now was not the time for anything of this.

"Why would you let me out? You brought me in here" Rip said quietly fearing anything that could be done to him next. And now Sara understood. The dark and cold waverider, the troops walking through the gateways and the evil twins of their team. Rip has indeed been tortured. Tortured and captured in his own mind by figures created by no one else than Thowne. The real Rip was not the one acting. The real Rip was in here all the time, tortured by his own friends not knowing why they were doing anything of whatever they did. Sara felt extremely sorry for Rip in this moment.

"Rip listen to me nothing of this is real, nothing of it this really happened." she stood up and closed the distance between Rip and herself. In a sudden panic Rip lifted his arms protectively against Sara and she was sent flying against the wall – the second time this day. He didn´t even touch her to do so and Rip was startled by what just happened. He looked at his hands and then back at Sara who was lying on the ground unconscious – again. She looked different than the one who took him and threw him into this cell. She looked warmer and her voice sounded human. He looked at her for quite some time before she started moving again. When she did he was almost certain that she was no threat to him. Sara opened her eyes and found herself in the same position as before, lying on the cold floor of the prison cell but this time it had been Rip who had put her there.

"How did you do that?" she asked while standing up once again.

"I don´t know, I didn´t know that I could do that" Rip answered and Sara was happy to hear him talk to her in an almost casual way.

"Do you know what that means? You still have control over your mind!" she stated and Rip saw hope in her eyes. Hope that he had lost several weeks ago when he was rotting in this cell and nobody came for him. Not even one of his friends. _Wait friends? I had friends? Right yes there was something, something really important._ Memories were running through his mind. He remembered another world, another waverider, a glorious one with people he liked and adventures they had gone through together. But was it real? Was this real? Could it really be that this was his mind playing tricks on him?

"You are the Captain of this ship and it is your task to make sure that nobody on it is left behind. Not even yourself. So get up and fight the hell back!" she held out her hand and Rip looked at it for a while before gripping it and lifting himself up the ground. Encouraged by Sara´s words he wanted to find out what was real and what was not and his only way to do so was to follow her.

"I am Rip Hunter" he said to himself and it sounded right, he thought.

"Captain of the waverider" Sara added supportingly and was happy to hear Rip repeat her words like a mantra.

"Captain of the waverider...and I am going to open this door...with my mind" this sounded not really convinced but who could sound convinced by saying something like that? He tried to concentrate and held his head between his hands. It hurt when a wave came out of his mind and flew in the door´s direction but it hurt even more when it came back to him without opening the door even for a tiny bit. He was frustrated and didn´t really want to try again when Jax suddenly entered the room.

"Hey, we don´t have much time so..." he looked at Rip "..is he alright or is he still nuts?" Rip looked at him in pure confusion and then looked at Sara hoping for an answer that would explain Jackson´s reaction ( _his name was Jackson, right?_ ) on seeing him.

"He is Rip. Our Rip." Sara said. Nope that didn´t really explain it to him. Jax opened the door and looked a little bit unsure when Rip walked past him. They walked outside and attempted to go to the main part of the ship but soon found themselves in front of a troop of evil team members including Sara, Mick, Firestorm and Ray. Evil Mick started to speak in this creepy retro voice.

"You shouldn´t have done that. Now you´re all gonna burn..."

"We can´t stop all of them Rip, you have to decide what is real and what not" Sara said looking at Rip pleading that he would make the right choice. Rip was startled by the situation and obviously had his doubts about what was going on but he seemed too confused to decide on anything.

"I don´t know...I...I don´t know what is real any more" he said stepping away and holding his hands to his head.

"We are" Jax whispered and suddenly Rip´s head was once again flooded by past memories of the good old times on the waverider. How he had laughed together with Sara, how they saved Dr. Stein and how Gideon was helping him in every way possible for a computer hologram. When evil Mick lifted his fire gun, Rip had decided which side he wanted to believe in and jumped in front of Sara and Jax protectively holding his hands in they air.

"NO!" he screamed and a wave wandered through the air hitting Mick from his feet and suddenly Mick vanished. Rip did the same move again and again and again and in the end Sara, Jax and Rip were alone on the ship. The ship started shaking and Sara knew that Rip was ready. His imagination of the waverider broke away and they had no time to loose. She and Jax used their wristbands to turn back to their own minds. Rip had to find the way back on his own. There was no way they coud help him with that but she was sure he could do it.

"See you soon" Sara said before pushing the button and vanished. Rip was now alone on the ship, his ship. It felt creepy to know that all of this never really happened and he was scared about what would happen when he got back to his real life. What would the others think about him? Was the team alright? What had happened during his absence? What had he done while he was captured in his own mind? All these questions ran through his head. But he was ready. He was sick of everything he had seen on this false waverider and had to go back as quickly as possible. Rip closed his eyes.

It felt like falling into a deep dark hole. He must have been falling for several minutes before his surroundings got brighter. When he opened his eyes he saw a white medical room and three faces directly in front of him. Sara, Jax and Dr. Stein were bending over him to see how he was or more specifically to see _who_ he was. His head hurt and suddenly he felt very tired and exhausted. He leaned his head against the cool metal and moaned.

"Astonishing" came the reaction of Dr. Stein but Rip didn´t hear him because he was fast asleep.

 **To be continued...**


	2. Memories

When Rip woke up again, he was lying in his bed. He didn´t know how he got there but he thought that it was better that way. Probably Sara or Martin had told Mick to lift him up and bring him to bed. Not a really pleasant thought. When he stood up to dress himself, burning memories ran through his mind and he found himself wincing on the floor. Broken pieces of what he had done formed in his mind and he knew what had happened when he was...well, no himself. It felt as if he was present as if he really did all of that with free will all by himself. He could feel Sara´s neck give away when he took her life. Rip was sick. How could he ever have done something like that? How? Rip closed his eyes. He didn´t know how long he had been lying there before the door to his room was opened.

"Rip!" Sara said kneeling down next to him. She wanted to lift Rip´s body up a bit but remembered his first reaction of her doing that when they were in his mind. She was releaved but also concerned when he whispered

"M´sorry, Sara, I am so sorry" over and over again. He fell asleep simply out of exhaustion while she was holding him in her arms. She lifted him up again and laid him in his bed, leaving him to rest. She knew that Rip would probably not remember that this ever happened but it was fine with her because that would be easier for him

When Rip woke up two hours later he felt a little bit better. He stayed in bed and looked at the ceiling thinking about the things he did and that he could do nothing that would make it easier for his team. He was scared about meeting all of them again after all that had happened and wanted to prepare himself for the worst. Later he stood up and put his usual clothes on. When he put on his coat again Sara came in and looked at him happy to have him back.

"Nice to see that it all still fits" she said with a smile and Rip turned around. He was still a bit jumpy but everything was better than the evil Rip.

"Yeah, it seems so" Rip looked down at himself then he looked up and his facial expression changed from amusement to deep and true sadness when he looked at Sara.

"I am really sorry Sara" he said lowering his gaze to the ground, readying himself for whatever was coming next.

"So you do remember." It was more of a statement than a question and Rip looked to the ground.

"Everything" he glimpsed at Sara´s neck and she understood. There were no more words that could have been spoken between the both of them and Rip felt unpleasant. Sara left to go to the others and soon Rip had to follow her, heart pounding against his chest.

He entered the bridge only moments later and everyone was there staring at him. After a very awkward greeting of all team members – it was obvious that most of them didn´t trust him anymore – Sara asked him for the one thing they got him back for in the first place, the location of the spear fragment.


	3. Stay

After the team had been able to get the last peace of the spear everyone was happy – except Rip. He packed his stuff and left his room. On his way to the small shuttles, of which he wanted to steel one for the greater good, he heard footsteps behind him.

"Where do you think you´re going?" Sara asked and Rip turned around.

"Making a trip" he said with sadness in his eyes.

"Look, I know that I have no place in this team anymore and that is only logical after...what I did" he explained himself.

"What are you talking about? You are the captain of this ship" Sara stated not letting him go away so easily.

"No I am not anymore. You are...and I have to admit that you are a much better captain than I ever was and than I ever could have become. You changed this team for the best, one thing I was never able to do" he said but Sara didn´t reply anything. Instead Ray, Martin and Jax entered from the other side of the gateway laughing about something they had been talking about. They stopped abruptly and looked at the scene before them.

"What is going on here?" Ray asked confused.

"Look, I know that you all want me gone. I see it every time when I look at your faces, every time when I am trying to play a part in this team. You look at me and wonder if it could ever happen again, if I could become this...monster again. And the truth is I don´t know. I don´t have a place here anymore and I can understand that so I am going to leave on my own." Every single face of the men dropped.

"No, you can´t just leave. We just got you back" Ray exclaimed.

"I am totally agreeing with Mr. Palmer here. I am certain that it must be difficult to interact with us again but I am sure that we can figure something out" Dr. Stein added and looked at each face in the round trying to convince them that they´ll find a way.

"I appreciate your concern but we all know that I am not of any profit for this team. Miss Lance is a great captain and Mr. Jackson knows everything I could tell him about the waverider. I am useless for the team. "

"That´s not true, Rip. We can still use a expertise from time to time and it is not always useless to be remembered of the consequences our actions could have, which you have a certain know-how of. Yes, Sara brought the team closer together but you are the time master. You know stuff and you know time better than we ever could." Rip was startled by this sudden statement by Jax. He had been the one who showed it most openly that he does not trust him anymore. Jackson must have noticed the confusion on Rip´s face and explained himself.

"Yes, I know that I behaved a little bit...angry around you but I know that what had happened was not your fault. I have seen what they did to your mind and I am sorry for by behaviour from before." Rip was speechless and even more when Jax added

"Please, don´t leave. We need you."

And he stayed. He hadn´t even been sure where he had wanted to go but he had been sure that he had to leave. But now he was certain that he misinterpreted his teammates´ reaction.


	4. Nightmare

Everything had been working fine over the last few weeks. Rip had been able to help the team sometimes and had been happy with his role on the ship. Everything was back to normal and Rip had been himself again. But now Sara recognised a change in Rip´s behaviour. He didn´t try to help the team as hard as he did in the beginning but that was ok. What wasn´t was that he started to look very tired, she had seen him often wandering up and down on the ship and wondered if he ever went to sleep. The hardest part was that he started to evade the team members and especially Sara. He left the room as soon as someone came in, did only talk when it was really important and hid himself in his room. One day it was enough for Sara and she followed him when he disappeared again. He went to his room and she saw him through the window wandering around in his room. At first he sat on the bed then he stood up went around in a circle stopped in front of the door as if he was deciding whether he wanted to go outside again and then sat down on the bed again. His posture didn´t please Sara. Rip sat there with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands and closed eyes. He seemed sad and anxious. She decided not to interrupt him because she knew that it would only make thinks worse. Instead she walked back the bridge.

"Gideon" she said, when she was sure that nobody could hear her.

"Yes, Captain Lance" the calm voice of Gideon answered.

"I want you to have an eye on Rip. Please inform me if he is doing anything unusual, he is behaving freaky at the moment" Sara ordered.

"Yes, Captain. Therefore I may inform you that Captain Hunter did not sleep the last three nights and instead wandered around the ship. I took it upon myself to prepare his water with some tranquilliser today because I was concerned his health could worsen." Sara was amazed by these words and thought about how often they would have been lost if Gideon wouldn´t be there.

"Thanks Gideon, that´s a good idea."

In the middle of the next night Sara woke up by the sound of Gideon´s voice.

"I am sorry to wake you Captain Lance but I should inform you that Captain Hunter´s heart frequency is high above normal and that his breathing is way too fast." Sara stood up in the split of a second and was on her way to Rip´s room.

"Thank you Gideon" she sat when she arrived in front of the door. She opened it and stepped in the dark room. Her eyes needed some time before she was able to see Rip lying in his bed. He turned around groaned and turned around again. Sara saw drops of sweat streaming over his forehead.

"Is he having a fever?" Sara asked quietly and Gideon answered in the same volume.

"Negative Captain. It seems that Captain Hunter is having a nightmare." Rip turned around once again and hit the bedside with his fists. He moaned, not as if he was himself in pain but as if something was definitely wrong.

"Medically it is unpropitious to wake a person who is having a nightmare but in this case I would like to induce you to wake Captain Hunter up before he hurts himself" that sounded plausible to Sara and when Rip winced once again she started shaking him slightly at the shoulders.

"No, no don´t" Rip whispered scared but he didn´t wake up. Instead he buried his face in the pillows and shivered at his whole body. Then Sara shook him harder and suddenly Rip opened his eyes, lifted his head, recognised Sara right in front of him and flinched as far away from her as he could.

"No, don´t come near me" he said in pure fear and Sara was reminded of the prison cell in Rip´s mind. He was probably dreaming about it and though that she was hurting him.

"Rip, everything is alright. You are in your room on the waverider and nobody is hurting you." she said with a calming voice, despite the fact that she was certainly not calm herself. She was extremely concerned.

"I know you don´t hurt me Sara...but I might hurt you" Rip said sadly and moved further away when she tried to approach him. He stood up from his bed and was now in the corner of his room opposite to Sara.

"Please leave" he pleaded but Sara was not going to do anything until she knew that Rip was going to be alright.

"Rip you are not hurting me" she said and attempted to step closer to him but he held lifted his hands as a warning and she froze.

"How can I be certain of that? I did it before and it could happen again. I don´t have control about what I am doing" Rip sounded exhausted which was not really astonishing considering that he had not slept the past couple of days.

"Rip, believe me when I tell you that it was a uniquely situation and that something like that will never happen again. You have vanquished this faked reality in your mind and it won´t happen again because you are not captured anymore and this time I will make sure that it stays that way." Rip looked up – he had been looking on the ground again like he always did when he tried to evade the team – and looked at Sara. She saw tears in his eyes and felt sorry for him. Rip was so exhausted that he sank to his knees, head in his hands.

"I don´t want to go there ever again, Sara. I have done things I would never do and it feels as if I did it because I wanted to. I remember every bloody detail. I remember how I shot at Mr. Jackson, I remember how I fought against all of you with a sword and I remember how it felt when I broke your neck." Tears dropped through his hands and on the ground.

"Every time I close my eyes I can see you dying under my hand and I can´t get rid of the feeling that, at that time, I really wanted to kill you" Sara had stepped closer and knelt down next to Rip. She hugged one arm around him and he didn´t flinch away again. Instead he leaned into her touch and laid his head on her shoulder.

"Rip, you see all the bad things that you did but you forget about all the good stuff. I was in your mind and I can definitively tell you that you didn´t do it willingly. The fact that you were captured and tortured by evil versions of us tells me that you didn´t stop trying. You wanted to stop yourself from doing what you did because you indeed would have never done something like that and they had to lock you up inside your head to make you their weapon. And I am sure that it will never happen again." Sara said hugging Rip who still sat on the floor.

"How can you be so certain?" he asked looking up into her eyes.

"Because of what you have said only seconds before. You said that you rememberd everything as if you had wanted to do it but you also said that you would have never done something like that. That tells me that you are questioning your own memories and that is good because they are not real. They are not your own but the ones of the evil Rip. The Rip that was left after they locked up every good part of you – like your loyalty and morality – into your mind." Rip understood what Sara was talking about and Sara noticed that the shivering stopped and that Rip´s breathing, which had been hectic and irregular, calmed down at least for a little bit.

"At least I know now what I am dealing with." he said and Sara added

"And the next time you find yourself in that cell you can still use your own willpower to toss people around as if you were some kind of a hyperactive Darth Vader" that comment caused a smile on Rip´s face.

"That was really cool" he admitted and Sara found that he sounded like a four-year-old who had been on his first roller coaster – it was kind of sweet.

After a few moments Rip was yawning and Sara send him back to bed by telling him that he looked as if he should sleep five days in a row. After she had left the room she watched the livestream from the camera in Rip´s room to make sure that he has no nightmare. She was pleased to see him go to bed and immediately falling into a deep dreamless sleep. She smiled and went back to bed herself.


End file.
